Three Wild Days before (Rick)

The first week of being in a college is wild, and there is so much to talk about, and therefore it may take me a while to tell you the full story, so for this post I will include from the Saturday I moved in to Monday, the day before Orientation at the University. I will separate each part of the week over several posts, or else you’ll never see anything!

Moving in on Saturday to college was a completely new experience, and I really didn’t know what to expect, and I was feeling a little nervous. Not only was I going to be staying here for quite some time, but I was going to meet a whole new bunch of faces very quickly.

Saturday – Moving in

As I’d only just gotten there in time, as soon as my stuff was in my room I went to have lunch along with my brother and mother. I was quickly talking to some others from overseas and also some senior students. One of them had a name that I could hardly pronounce, and has proved to be hard to remember.

Ice breaking activities helped us to meet new people with things like ‘speed dating’ where we would quickly find the answers to a number of set questions about another person. It became apparent that the person who wrote the questions was a bit of an OC fan. We then played a game called ‘evolution’ which involved playing rock, scissors paper as to ‘evolve’ into things from an egg, a chicken, a dinosaur, a human, than a ‘supreme being’. The final stage involved us singing and dancing out a song. (Of which I don’t remember what it was)

Later that night we were dancing on the Medley Hall roof top, for which a professional dancing instructor was organised to teach us to dance the Samba. The dancing instructor didn’t turn up without letting us know. One of the older students who knew how to do these dances had to teach us themselves. Quite a number of people had trouble understanding exactly what was happening, and also didn’t seem that enthused, although I was quite happy to join in, and had a lot of fun doing so, and stayed on the roof for longer with about 12 people who were enjoying the dancing.

Just before going to bed I decided to try out my TV. And oh-dear, the reception is like having no aerial! Fortunately I don’t tend to watch so much TV and prefer to play video games instead.

Sunday – The Amazing Race

Today the student club organised for us to go on a rather crazy adventure around the city. We were given a number of tasks, each of which was worth a certain number of points.

Some of our crazy tasks included:

– Buying ‘foam’ from Starbucks.

– Asking a police officer to have a photo taken with their police cap on.

– The girls using face paint to put moustaches on their face.

– Guys and girls swapping their clothes. (Our group only went as far as a jumper, but another was crazy enough to swap the whole external outfit)

– Painting a strangers face. Our group found a guy, probably 18-20, and asked him if he would be happy to let us paint his face. He agreed so two of the girls drew lines and pattens with the face paint. After walking in one direction he diverted back towards a McDonalds store for what we presume was to wash it off. (I did happen to see him walking around the city later, and the lines had mostly disappeared.)

– And finally, of the things of significance and I can remember, us guys had to try out make-up from the Myer testers. In our group the girls put on the make-up for each of the guys. My makeup artist gave me bright pink cheeks, put on blue eye shadow and smeared some other stuff on the side of my face. I made up the story to the assistants (they didn’t seem to notice the others) that we were trying out makeup for an upcoming play, and we were trying to get ideas. They offered to get a proper makeup person (what ever they might call it) and then I had to tell them that we were finished. Probably wasn’t the best idea trying it on where it was obvious, then again another group just told the truth, and apparently the assistants were quite happy to put makeup on a guys face. Our group mentality basically was that it would seem less weird, thinking of it now, it was probably just sounding weirder.

Later there was a sexual harassment demonstration that was played out by some of the senior students.

‘Messy Monday’

We were told we needed to have clothes that we would ‘never want to wear again – ever!’ I was guessing we’d be having an egg fight or something similar.

There was an op-shop run for those of us that wanted clothes that we wouldn’t want to chuck away. I just needed some pants and thongs. There was some selecting of clothes for other people, and people buying for guys were in the girls section and vice versa. One guy, Jesse, got pink shorts with a white cat’s face on it, while another, Campbell, went for what was a bit like a clown costume.

On our way back from the op-shop we were lucky enough to see some Latrobe college students, who had a task of making a chain as long as possible with their clothes. This meant there were quite a number of guys in their underwear outside Myer in the city. Glad we didn’t have to do that, then again, what would be the chances of someone we know (excluding fellow college goers) seeing us?

Later we went to the Carlton Gardens (one block from Medley hall, and is also home to IMAX and Jeff’s shed). We had to first of all spread chocolate topping on our faces in the shape of a moustache and stuffed pillows under our t-shirts, intending to look like an Australian cricket icon dude. (I forget his name, I’ll try to find out and correct later.) What happens next might sound strange, but we had to run towards each other, jump and make our pillows hit each other. This resulted in us bouncing back and also feeling a bit dizzy. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Jesse collided with someone else and got a blood nose.

Next we had a soccer game. We went bare feet, and my kicks on the ball were felt for a few days after. I spent most of the game as goal keeper – I enjoy picking up the ball. Luckily the sides were even so I did have something to do. During the game I unintentionally hit the soccer ball into a fellow college members head. (They were about 30 metres away.) Why don’t people watch the ball when they play?

Next up was a pillow grabbing game where we had to snatch our pillows from underneath other players t-shirts. We had to grab it from bellow, our pillows had to have some part out bellow, and we were not allowed to hold onto our pillows. I lasted quite a while just by avoiding the crowds. When it got down to about a dozen people I had to act more aggressive, but got my pillow stolen instead. Then I was able to go and get some lunch.

We were brought back out onto the grass, and the senior students started to chuck jelly at us. So we had to take revenge and teach those bigger than us a lesson! Fairly early on I copped a lump of jelly stuffed down the back of my t-shirt. This lasted quite a while, and eventually we were getting all of our jelly from the stuff that had already been thrown around. When we got back to Medley Hall we had a nice cold spray with a hose to get all the excess jelly off ourselves without making our college a mess.

It feels great to have a shower sometimes!

Next we went to Crown Casino. And what an evil place it is! [Editor: Ooops! we’ve had to edit this bit!] …I walked over the water jets and had to go home on the tram completely wet.

That night we went bowling at Strike Bowling Bar. My skills that night were very poor. In fact lately my bowling skills have been very poor, scoring only about 50 in each game, compared to what I was doing last year of 100-150. Must be old age. Nevertheless it was a great opportunity to try to get to know the people more in my college.